Children In Yesha Under Siege
By Shai Gefen

 The school year is over but 120,000 children throughout Yesha have an additional month of school. * Mr. Yochai Demari, director of the board of education of the Shomron region, describes the difficulties the children must contend with while the government looks the other way. * Facing tragedy with courage, mesirus nefesh, and faith.

Mr. Demari, you are serving in your position during a period of non-stop attack. Tell us about the school year.

Officially, we’ve finished the school year, but in actual fact we have the students for another month - for two reasons. First of all, in order to protect the children’s lives. It was just a month and a half ago that two boys were murdered near Tekoa a few hundred meters from their house. Secondly, to give the children a break from the tension they’ve experienced this past year, a daily non-stop tension without a single day free of attacks, murder, shooting, automatic fire, mortars, etc. We try to combine the highest level of security with day camp activities.

Describe what the children of Yesha, especially in Shomron, are feeling. No doubt the Israelis living within the Green Line have no idea what’s going on, on the other side of the Line...

We’re talking about a double message. On the one hand the children are exposed to constant attack, something they hadn’t experienced before Rosh HaShana. Today there is no household without somebody who was attacked. There is no yishuv without somebody murdered. Wherever you go, people are dealing with the pain and loss. On the other hand, our message is clear - we carry on and are not broken. We carry on with our daily routine.

I can say with satisfaction that despite the war, most of the settlements throughout Yesha and Shomron in particular didn’t miss even a single day of school; people continue to travel, to learn, and to teach. This phenomenon shows strength of character, dedication, mesirus nefesh, and faith. Even though there are serious questions being asked, like why is this happening? what is our role here? and isn’t it possible to be elsewhere?

Or the million dollar question: Why isn’t the government doing anything?

That’s a question the children in school ask, and we have to deal with these questions. The children see the soldiers making efforts for the sake of security at all hours of the day. They see them accompanying the transports, but the children ask why the government doesn’t allow them to win the war. Children see things sharply, black and white, and they definitely have painful issues which we, the teachers and educators, have to constantly deal with.

Do the children feel they’ve been abandoned?

Over 120 Jews have been killed (may Hashem avenge their blood). At least half of them were residents of Yesha. Many were teachers on their way to work, like Sarah Lisha, Rina Didovsky, and Miriam Amitai. Children were murdered too, like the two boys from Tekoa, and the children from Yeshivas Bnei Chayil in Kedumim. There are children who will be crippled for the rest of their lives, like the three Cohen children from Gaza and others, not to speak of the hundreds of orphans who are bereft of their father, mother, or both parents. Most of the children also suffer or will suffer from disabilities and traumas, with nobody knowing how these will manifest in the future. Children deal with bereavement in a more sensory way.

Can you give us examples of what you see going on with the children right now?

Recently a girl told her teacher that after her father and mother die, she won’t live with her grandparents. This was said after the double murder of the Kahane couple. There was another girl who was terrified about everything going on, and as a result she lost her sense of caution, and when there’s shooting at the yishuv she runs towards the danger while everybody else is rolling down the shutters.

It’s reminiscent of “sheep to the slaughter.”

I wouldn’t call it that, but the feelings are very painful. Anybody can see we’ve been abandoned and in an intolerable situation. What’s going on here in Yesha is terrifying. Maybe this is what the mishna at the end of Maseches Sota is referring to when it says what will happen in ikvisa d’Meshicha - that the border people will wander and not be granted relief.

How is the educational system dealing with the situation?

It hurts me that 120 Jews were killed with no end in sight. If 120 Jews were killed on the northern border as a result of katyushas, I imagine that the political and military response would be much harsher.

Dovid Levy’s speech when he was Foreign Minister, “a child for a child, blood for blood,” illustrates that there’s blood and then there’s blood... Settler’s blood is hefker because of where they chose to live.

And children ask why this is so?

Of course. Children don’t understand why the military doesn’t respond. They don’t understand what’s happening here. Go tell a child why the government doesn’t protect him and doesn’t allow the army to fight. These are very complicated issues.

That’s my general complaint. As far as the specific area of education, we have strong complaints against government offices which are supposed to determine the problems and offer solutions. I think that the main challenge of the war in Yesha is in the area of the educational system.

I don’t have complaints about the misrad ha’chinuch, since they established a team which tried to offer local solutions, but it cannot finance the entire school system in Yesha in light of the severe problems we face here. So you have to fight for everything. Our children are under daily siege, both in an emotional as well as in a physical war.

I’ll give you an example. Those living in the north of the country recently received an increase due to the difficult security situation - an increase of psychologists, teachers, and other resources. In Yesha, on the other hand, the Ministry of Education said we need an increase of counselors and psychologists, but the one holding this up is the Treasury Department.

There’s talk about discrimination against the schools in Yesha, like the matriculation exams.

It’s not clear. There was an error. I repeat, my complaints are not against the Ministry of Education, since it allocated special funds for teachers’ training and for additional hours in the schools, and solutions for teachers who didn’t manage to get to transports which were delayed. But those are only solutions for singular issues. As far as the general problems are concerned, the Ministry of Education certainly can’t handle them unless it has help from the other branches of government.

What are your demands?

We’re talking about a significant increase of psychologists and counselors in the schools; we’re asking for protective materials for school buildings which in many places are weak structures and need to be made secure. Even the Ministry of Education says the time has come for the students to move into concrete buildings, but there’s no budget for it. We’re talking about protective suits and bulletproof vests for teachers. I’m talking about small vehicles that will transport teachers and children in special education, and many more items.

What do the children think about having to travel in armored vehicles?

That’s a relatively old thing. Right after Netanyahu signed the Wye Accords, along with the hoped for “peace” agreement, all the buses were armored. That’s part of the “peace” we got... Thank G-d they did it then because they understood where things were headed.

What do the students who attend school throughout Yesha have to say?

About 120,000 children attend school here in Yesha. In the Shomron area, 9000 children attend ten schools, and there are an additional 60 kindergartens and 30 day care centers, all in all - about 100 schools. In addition, there are children who are sent outside the government system to 270 schools, centers, yeshivos, and special education.

Most of the children travel in armored vehicles, but the teachers travel in vehicles that are not protected and without bulletproof vests.

A grim atmosphere: teachers traveling unprotected, children on armored buses, shooting and bombs at junctions and on the sides of roads...

Yes, it’s very difficult. Though it’s not the same all over. There are definitely better places and worse places. The education system in Yesha is operating on the front lines, where the children are the real soldiers fighting this war.

There was shooting at a school in Gush Katif, where tragedy was averted miraculously. Mortars fell in the school yard, and children on their way to school, as well as teachers, were hurt. Many other attempts failed and teachers remained unhurt in a miraculous manner. I know of countless incidents of ambushes against teachers on their way to teach. Go ask a teacher who miraculously escaped death a half hour before, to go teach...

Do the children write to the cabinet ministers about their situation and what they’re going through?

It’s not organized, but children definitely write very emotional letters about the situation. They describe the problems, and some senior ministers acknowledged them.

Nu?

Words aren’t enough for us. We need action and there’s very little of that, both in security and in bolstering the educational system in Yesha.

There are plans for aid for education in Yesha, but they’re just not being carried out?

You got it! The Jewish nation is full of ideas and suggestions. For example, the plans for long distance schooling overseen by the Education Ministry, which will make things much easier for the local system. But in the meantime, the ideas are not implemented, and it will take a lot more time until they are implemented. We do a lot of things on our own, without waiting for help.

Like what?

We established an emergency group of principals, and prepared ourselves for many possible eventualities. The more difficult the situation, the more creative our solutions have to be. If we had more resources, perhaps we’d do things differently. But we’re doing what we can with what we’ve got.

There are schools that start at nine in the morning to allow the teachers time to arrive. Then there are schools that start at seven in the morning to allow the teachers to get there earlier and not be exposed to attack. There’s a lot of creativity and rising to the challenges that each place presents.

We’ve had a year of war, and I think the children of Yesha are managing quite well despite the situation.

How long can you carry on this way?

We are not about to break. I repeat: There are children who will experience the psychological damage only in a year or three years. I’m worried about these children. On the other hand, I say unequivocally: The organizational system will continue to operate! We will not break!

You speak about children being psychologically damaged. Do you think there will be children who come out of this stronger than before?

Definitely. The situation compels people to ask tough questions, and they need answers. The spirit of the majority is not broken, and they understand that our living in Yesha is a historic imperative in the history of the Jewish people. The people living here know that if there’s a break in Yesha, it will spread throughout the country. To a great extent, we are the armor plate of the country, as we act as the buffer for Palestinian terror. I know that there are children who go about with feelings of mesirus nefesh, as Rabbi Akiva said, “When will I be able to fulfill it?” These are the facts and stories with which thousands of people live daily.

There’s no question that our children live with very difficult challenges. I can go around with you to a number of yishuvim, especially those on the mountain and you’ll hear mesirus nefesh talk.

We spoke before about painful issues for teachers and children. I’ll give you some more examples. One teacher said she doesn’t go to school before washing the dishes and folding the laundry, “since I don’t know whether I’ll return in the afternoon and who will enter the kitchen and take care of it.”

In many families the father and mother travel separately so someone will remain alive to care for the children. There are teachers who travel in armored buses who instinctively raise their feet while traveling in case the bus rides over a bomb. This is how people live day in and day out.

The media tries to paint a picture of people fleeing. What do you think?

My impression is the opposite. I can tell you about yishuvim that had quite a few families moving in last summer. I won’t deny that families do leave, as they do from every yishuv around the country, but I don’t see a mass exodus. As soon as they publicize the numbers, everybody will see that all the talk about people leaving is unfounded.

Do you agree with the feeling that while people here are on the frontlines, in the center of the country people are sitting at the cafes and drinking wine as though in another world entirely?

Thank G-d there are places in the country where people don’t have to live with what we have to contend with. As far as your question, people do feel that way and it’s very hard, but that’s the way it’s always been. A small part of the nation bears the burden. At the same time, I must mention the empathy of people from all over the country. There are expressions of admiration from all segments of the population, even from those elements that aren’t considered fans of the settlements in Yesha.

Let us hope that our leaders recover in time and not allow the present situation to continue so that the Jewish people feel protected in their land, “Vi’y’shavtem l’betach b’artzechem.”